Guilt does not equal growth

Hello! Today’s message starts with a question. At any point over the last week, have you made yourself feel guilty or experienced guilt over anything? If the answer is yes, and especially if that’s a recurring experience for you, then keep listening!

Now, I wonder if you’ve been in either or both of these two scenarios before: Scenario 1 is that you’ve had a person in your life you felt really supported by – the kind of friend you could tell anything to and can be yourself completely with. Scenario 2 is that you’ve had a person in your life who offers the opposite experience – someone who’s critical of you – when you’re with them, you feel you’re never quite measuring up to their standards.

I’m guessing that you can relate to both. So then, the question becomes: Which person are you to YOURSELF? Are you that accepting friend, or are you that critical person? 

This is a key question! You have the ability to choose which way to relate to yourself – and I bet it comes as no surprise that being the accepting type of person to yourself is going to get you much farther than being the critical type. It helps you more now, and it helps you more in the future. Let’s look at how.

How does it help you more now? Consider a comparison of the experiences you’ve had with both of those types of people in your life. When you open up and share a challenge, which one resolves more for you? I’ve had experiences with both types of people too. When I’ve shared with a critical person, I feel worse, with more layers of guilt, which usually drives me to make additional choices that are less helpful to me. On the other hand, I’ve had many experiences sharing challenges with the accepting person in the first scenario. In those cases, not only do I feel accepted, but I find I’m able to actually work through the experience. I often hear myself sharing in a way that allows me to solve many of my own problems and answer a lot of my own questions. The accepting environment helps me move through it.

How does it help me in the future? Simply stated – quantum physics. This reveals that the way that you are being now affects your future. Not only do you feel better in the moment when dealing with an accepting person, but it actually puts you into a positive space. If you’re bogged down by guilt, you’re going to continue creating experiences that draw more guilt – you’ll see through that lens, and be driven toward decisions that aren’t helpful.

There’s another key point related to this: When you’re in a situation where you know you’ll be accepted, you can open up. The same thing works with yourself. If I’m accepting myself, I’m able to see more clearly and truthfully. If I’m treating myself critically, I’m literally preventing myself from seeing the things that are helpful for my future. If I’m creating guilt for myself, I’m going to want to run from that situation; I’m going to want to mentally avoid it. As we saw before, when I’m accepted, I open up and can actually see bigger, move through the challenge, and get answers.

Guilt does not equal growth. If we want to grow, we must be able to see clearly the things we need to change. We can only do that if we set the stage with an internal environment of acceptance. So, if you’ve been taught in the past that guilt leads to change, I invite you question that. Eliminate guilt from your own relationship with yourself.